Zombie (Status)

Zombie(ゾンビ, Zonbi?), also known as Undead, is a negative status ailment that appears in various games in the series and is, along with "Zombify", often the name of the spell which causes the status. Its effects vary from game to game.

In some games, Zombie status reduces the character's HP to 0 and makes the affected character uncontrollable and hostile to the party, similar to Charm. In these games, a zombified character is flagged defeated for the purpose of Game Overs.

In other games, Zombie status makes the afflicted characters undead, acquiring the same inherent weaknesses, resistances and immunities as undead monsters, while leaving them alive and under player control. Typically, this means that healing magic (and some healing items), HP and MP drain and some Instant Death effects have the reverse effect. The reviving items and spells have the same effect as Death (though in some games it simply deals a significant amount of damage). The spell Reverse in Final Fantasy XII bears some similarities to this status. In some games, Zombie status cuts physical damage taken.

In some games, such as Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI, both versions of the status condition appear, with the former known as Zombie and the latter referred to as Undead.

Zombie can typically be cured via Holy Water (also been called Magic Tag or Revivify), but generally not by normal healing items/spells. Zombie status usually persists outside of combat.

Contents

Zombie is inflicted by several enemy attacks. The player loses control of characters inflicted with Zombie, and they automatically attack any random ally. This is not to be mistaken for the "Undead" status, which can be obtained by using certain equipment, or using the Necromancer job. The game ends if all characters are zombies. If the status is inflicted to a hiding character, it will result in the Hidden Zombies Bug. If Zombie is inflicted on a singing character, they will continue to sing.

Zombied characters have green skin, white eyes and zero HP. They are immune to most damage, and equipping a zombied character with the Healing Staff will make them randomly heal party members. Zombied characters are immune to the Blind, Poison, Float, Mini, Toad, Petrify, and Instant Death statuses.

Zombie status acts much like the Final Fantasy V Zombie status, in other words, zombified characters have their HP reduced to 0, they attack random allies, and are considered "knocked out" for the purpose of Game Overs.

Whenever a character is under the Zombie status hits a target, there is a 1/16 chance of that character inflicting the Blind status, as well as a 1/16 chance of inflicting the Poison status. The Zombie status increases the attacker's hit rate on the affected target by 25%, apart from the game versions affected by the Evade Bug.

There are also a number of ways to trigger the 0 HP Character Bug with the use of Zombie status.

Inflicting the Zombie status on enemies results in making that enemy untargetable with no way of killing them, literally rendering them invincible for the duration of the battle. The Zombified enemies are treated as dead upon the defeat of all enemies. The status on enemies still work in the same manner as it does for affected party members, these enemies will attack the party and their own allies randomly.

Game Element

Type

Effect

Soul Spiral

Blitz

Removes Zombie and other statuses at the cost of the user's life.

Tapir

Dance

Removes Zombie as well as other statuses.

Wild Bear

Dance

Removes Zombie as well as other statuses.

Transfusion

Lore

Removes Zombie as well as other statuses and restores all HP and MP at the cost of the user's life.

Choke Smoke

Enemy Attack

Revives a KO'd character as a Zombie.

Mind Blast

Enemy Attack

Inflicts Zombie as well as various other statuses.

Overcast

Enemy Attack

Inflicts a countdown on all targets, and at the end of the countdown, the target is turned into a Zombie.

In addition to Zombie status, Final Fantasy VI also has the hidden Undead status. The Relic Lich Ring makes the character undead. There are no cosmetic changes but the character is damaged by healing magic and healed by spells like Drain and Death. Certain monsters possess Undead status inherently, and Gau or Gogo can acquire Undead status through Rages, see here for details. Undead status has to effect outside of combat, since it expires automatically at the end of battle.

Zombie is caused by the spell Zombie, cast by enemies such as Blood Soul and Forbidden. The target changes color to a dark greenish tint, receives damage from curative items and magic and is instantly killed by Life magic and items. Healed using the Esuna spell, the Treatment ability, or the items Holy Water, Remedy or Remedy+.

Targets under this status gain innate immunity to Instant Death and Doom, take double damage from Holy-elemental spells and attacks, and become resistant to physical attacks, halving the damage. Draining HP from a Zombie unit damages the drainer, unless both the caster and the target are undead/Zombie.

Several enemy attacks can inflict Zombie status on the party, causing them to turn a dark brownish color. Aside from the usual effects of healing items and magic causing harm, it also completely depletes the Trance gauge and prevents it from building while the status is in effect.

The Zombie status also prevents the afflicted character from being revived until cured and from earning Experience Points and Ability Points. It can be cured with a Magic Tag. The Reraise support ability will still revive Zombie characters, whereas every other revival method will fail.

Zombie can be inflicted on enemies by use of the Zombie Attack skill, located in Auron's section of the Sphere Grid, and by weapons with the Zombietouch and Zombiestrike weapon abilities. Characters and enemies inflicted with the Zombie status are seen with a glowing green body and black smoke clouds around their heads. Zombie can be cured by using the items Holy Water or Remedy, but it notably cannot be cured with the spell Esuna. Evrae Altana and Fallen Monk always start the battle under permanent Zombie status.

In this game Zombie causes items and abilities that normally heal HP deal damage instead. Revivification abilities such as Life and the item Phoenix Down will instantly kill characters under the Zombie status (though some enemies such as Barbatos are immune to this technique and Evrae Altana requires two Phoenix Downs to kill, rather than one. This is because Evrae Altana is immune to instant death). Abilities that normally drain HP or MP such as Drain and Osmose will have the effect reversed if used by or against Zombies; dealing damage to the spellcaster and healing its target.

A Zombie that is under the effects of poisoning will still take damage rather than heal, as Poison inflicts non-elemental damage. If a Zombified character uses Drain or Osmose on a Zombified enemy, the process is reverts to as if both characters weren't zombies; the Zombie hit with Osmose and/or Drain will lose HP or MP, and the spellcaster will regain the HP or MP.

There is another way to heal a Zombified character. If a Zombified character happens to have any of the four Elemental Eater abilities on his/her armor, then that character under Zombie can be hit with the element/s he or she absorbs, regaining HP.

One notable boon to the Zombie status is that characters under Zombie cannot be KO'd using standard Instant Death attacks. This can be used to the player's advantage in the battle against Yunalesca, who uses Zombie attacks and later in battle casts Mega Death on the entire party, knocking out all characters that are not under Zombie status.

Game Element

Type

Effect

Zombie Attack

Skill

Inflicts physical damage and inflicts Zombie status.

Contamination

Enemy Attack

Inflicts major non-elemental damage and Zombie as well as other statuses.

"Zombie" is one name that players give to the particular form of the Curse status that prevents healing effects from working on the character until it wears off.

There is also an internal-use only status that Undead have in order to take damage from Cure spells; normally, this status is not accessible to players, nor can it be removed from the undead. However, a bug in the Absorbing Shield's enchantment (which absorbs status effects from monsters) allowed players to make themselves undead until it was fixed.

Possibly as either a reference to the above bug incident, or to past incidences of the Zombie status in the series, or both, some of the lore for certain seasonal events referred to certain non-player characters as "using a forbidden curse to mask their vital signs".

Undead is the name of the status effect. The inflicted character appears in a purplish tint. Some human enemies and monsters are inherently undead. Curing items, magic and skills (except Chakra), will inflict damage to undead characters. Even though Cure spells will damage the character, he still will not try to evade them. HP loss from Cure spells will still trigger damage-dependent reaction abilities, such as MP Switch and Auto Potion. 'Regen' status still works as normal.

KO'd zombified units retain their Zombie status and may return to "life" upon the counter reaching 0; and skills and items with drain properties will instead heal the target and damage the user. 'Reraise' cannot be set on that character. If the character has Auto-Reraise (as from Chantage or Angel Ring), then Reraise will remain set when Undead is set. If the Undead/Reraised character is killed, that character cannot be revived by any means (aside from ending the battle).

The 'Death' spell will restore the character to full HP. The 'Raise' spell will subtract half of the undead character's Max HP, while the 'Arise' spell will subtract all of the undead character's remaining HP. Note that though Undead absorb 'Death', they are NOT immune to attacks which have add: Dead, such as Suffocate (The 'Death' spell is special-cased—it both adds Dead AND subtracts target's Max HP. The effect of the Undead ailment is to a: remove the add: Dead property from 'Death', and b: reverse damage from 'Death' into healing.) Undead units will still try to evade 'Death', even though it's beneficial to them. When a 'Death Sentence' runs out on an undead character, it will simply cancel 'Death Sentence' rather than adding 'Dead'.

The Zombie status makes the afflicted unit weak against the holy element, meaning magic such as Cure and healing items inflict damage. However abilities that heal using a different element such as Earth Heal still heal zombified units as normal. Abilities and items that normally revive units from KO inflict severe damage upon zombified units. Conversely, abilities that normally cause Instant Death to a unit will instead restore full HP to a zombified unit.

Also when a zombified unit is KO'd, the zombie status is not removed and therefore cannot be revived from KO using abilities or items. Instead a counter appears above their head, much like the Doom status. When the counter reaches zero, they are revived with 50% of their HP. Zombie can be removed with the item Holy Water. Zombies and Vampires are in permanent Zombie state.

[view·edit·purge]A zombie is an animated corpse resurrected by mystical means, such as witchcraft. Since the late 19th century, zombies have acquired popularity in North American and European folklore.